France

On Thursday, June 1, Donald Trump announced his plans to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, a 2015 global accord designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The long-term goal of the agreement is to keep global warming from exceeding the “tipping point” of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures.

During his announcement speech, Trump said that the accord placed a disproportionate burden on the United States.

“The rest of the world applauded when we signed the Paris agreement. They went wild. They were so happy,” Trump...

Last week, France’s highest court suspended a coastal village’s ban on burqa-compliant swimwear, ruling that the ban “dealt a serious and clearly illegal blow to fundamental liberties such as the freedom of movement, freedom of conscience and personal liberty.”

Villeneuve-Loubet is just one of more than 30 French towns that has prohibited so-called “...

Tuesday morning, a sparsely-attended Catholic Mass in France turned deadly as two knife-wielding teenagers stormed the church, took the worshipers hostage, and slit the throat of the priest.

Only 5 people had been in attendance at the morning Mass in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray. Father Jacques Hamel, the 85-year-old priest who lost his life in the attack, had been filling in for the regular parish priest, who was on vacation. Although an octogenarian parishioner was also severely injured in the attack, police shot and killed the two attackers before there were any...

Beachwear has become the newest item of contention in France’s ongoing battle between Muslim citizens’ veiling practices and state-mandated secularism.

British department store chain Marks & Spencer recently introduced a new item to its Western European stores, designed specifically to appeal to Muslim shoppers. The “burkini” is a one-piece swimsuit closely resembling a hooded wetsuit. The suit satisfies modesty requirements for women whose religious convictions lead them to cover their...

The rector of Paris’ Grand Mosque prompted fury and a viral petition when he casually suggested last week that empty churches be converted into mosques, to meet the needs of France’s 5 million Muslims.

Noting that a community that size requires about 4,000 mosques, compared to the 2,000 in France today, Dalil Boubakeur remarked that perhaps unused churches could be converted, reasoning “It’s the same God, the rites are like neighbors or brothers.”

However, most French do not appear to agree: according to the French Institute of Public Opinion, 67% would oppose such a plan...

As the world follows the aftermath of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo's offices and the deaths of twelve of its staff, some are reflecting on the nature of the media coverage as well as discrepancies in coverage between this and other acts of violence that occurred during the...

Masked gunmen attacked the offices of the French satire publication Charlie Hebdo on January 7, killing 12 people, including four cartoonists and the magazine's editor. The attack was a suspected radical militant response to the magazine's longstanding mockery of the Islamic faith, which included comics ridiculing...

France is a historically powerful Roman Catholic nation in Western Europe that has a strong tradition of secularism, known as laïcité. French laïcité emerged out of a revolutionary effort to abolish the influence of the Catholic Churchin French politics, and...